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Vintage Photos Showing Old West Saloons From the 19th and Early 20th Centuries

In the American Old West, a saloon designates a café or hotel. The first was established in 1822 at Brown’s Hole, Wyoming, between Colorado and Utah, to serve trappers during the harsh fur season. The popularity of these establishments is attested by the fact that even a city of 3,000 inhabitants, such as Livingston (Montana), recorded up to 33 saloons in 1883.

Who goes to the saloon? Cowboys to negotiate cattle, drink alcohol, play poker… There are trappers, travelers, gold diggers, soldiers, lawyers, railwaymen … The myth of the smoky saloon was born. Many saloons welcome their clients 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. They are often accused of being propitious to scenes of “general fights”, or pistol duels that end in shootings in the street or public hangings.

Take a look at these rare photos to see what real cowboys at saloons looked like in the 19th and early years of 20th centuries.

54 Incredible Photos of Nurses in World War 1

Nursing played a crucial role during the First World War. Emergency medical practices evolved enormously during the war years (1914–1918) and thousands more medical workers were involved than in previous wars. New and innovative practices included blood transfusions, the use of antiseptics, local anesthetics, and painkillers. During the course of the War, membership in the American Red Cross grew from 17,000 to more than 20 million, and 20,000 registered nurses were recruited for military service. In the United Kingdom, 38,000 members of the Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD) served in hospitals or worked as ambulance drivers and cooks.

Modern medical nursing finds its origins in the remarkable career of Florence Nightingale, the “ministering angel” and “lady with the lamp” who served day and night during the Crimean War (1853–1856). Her understanding of the importance of hygiene saved countless lives and set the stage for nursing as we know it today. Nightingale’s model was followed and greatly expanded upon during the First World War by remarkable women such as Edith Cavell, who saved many lives from both sides of the conflict but ended up before a German firing squad; and the subversive motorbike-riding team of Mairi Chisholm and Elsie Knocker, who left their military medical stations to set up their own clinic closer to the front lines where they could save lives rather than simply provide transportation to the morgue. Similarly, novelist Mary Borden founded a field station that she called “the second battlefield” close to the front lines. https://www.theworldwar.org/explore/exhibitions/past-exhibitions/nurses

40 Vintage Photographs of New York City at Night during the 1940s

(Photos by Andreas Feininger/ LIFE Archive Photos)

46 Vintage Photos of Lumberjacks Who Felled Big Trees in the Early 20th Century

Flapper Icon and Sex Symbol: 50 Stunning Photos of Actress Louise Brooks in the 1920s

Mary Louise Brooks, known professionally as Louise Brooks, was an American film actress and dancer during the 1920s and 1930s. She began dancing at an early age with the Denishawn Dancers (which was how she left Kansas and went to New York) and then became one of the most fascinating and alluring personalities ever to grace the silver screen.

Brooks is famous for her bob hairstyle that she helped popularize during the prime of her career. Thousands of women were attracted to that style and adopted it as their own.

Brooks of her dark haired look and being the beautiful woman that she was, plus being a modern female, she was not especially popular among Hollywood’s clientle. She just did not go along with the norms of the film society.

Brooks really came into her own when she left Hollywood for Europe. There she appeared in a few German productions which were very well made and continued to prove she was an actress with an enduring talent. Until she ended her career in film in 1938, she had made only 25 movies. After that, she spent most of her time reading and painting. She also became an accomplished writer, authoring a number of books, including her autobiography.

Brooks died of a heart attack in Rochester, New York in 1985. She was 78 years old.

Take a look at these gorgeous photos to see the beauty of Louise Brooks in the 1920s.

Lee Miller’s Stunning Images of Women During World War II

Raped aged seven. Spotted by Conde Nast aged 19. Muse to Man Ray in her twenties. Painted by Picasso aged 30. And the woman in Hitler’s bathtub in 1945, aged 38.

She is Lee Miller, a model who left the world of fashion to become a fearless war photographer during the dark days of the 1940s.

Lee Miller photographed innumerable women during her career, first as a fashion photographer and then as a journalist during the Second World War, documenting the social consequences of the conflict, particularly the impact of the war on women across Europe. Her work as a war photographer is perhaps that for which she is best remembered – in fact she was among the 20th century’s most important photographers on the subject.

Lee Miller in Hitler’s bathtub, Munich, Germany, 1945. Miller’s friend David Scherman took this photograph, and it’s very carefully staged, from the picture of Hitler on the tub to the slightly kitschy statue on the right, to the boots on the bathmat beside the tub. These are the boots Miller had worn to visit the concentration camp at Dachau earlier that day, and the dirt on the bathmat is dirt from Dachau.

**Anna Leska, Air Transport Auxilliary, Polish pilot flying a spitfire, White Waltham, Berkshire, England, 1942.**

**A French woman is accused of collaborating with the Germans, Rennes, France, 1944.**

**ATS officers getting changed in Camberley, Surrey, 1944.**

**An exhausted nurse at the 44th evacuation hospital, Normandy, France, 1944.**

**A tired mother and son wait at a crossroads for transport, Luxembourg, 1945.**

**Homeless children in Budapest, Hungary, 1946. Miller’s first assignment after the war.**

**Women in fire masks, Downshire Hill, Hampstead, London, 1941.**

**Irmgard Seefried, Opera singer, singing an aria from ‘Madame Butterfly’, Vienna Opera House, Vienna, Austria, 1945.**

**Two German women in ruined Cologne, 1945.**

**Model shot with the backdrop of bomb damage in London, 1940.**

**The daughter of the Deputy Mayor of Leipzig after the family committed suicide on 20th April 1945 as American troops were entering the city.**

**Surgeons at a field hospital in Normandy in 1944.**

**Lady Mary Dunn and young evacuee, Buckinghamshire, England, 1941.**

**Mlle Christiane Poignet, law student, Paris, France, 1944.**

**Lee Miller in steel helmet specially designed for using a camera, Normandy, France 1944**

Rare Photographs Showing Life Aboard Titanic Shortly Before Its Sinking in 1912

The Reverend Francis Patrick Mary Browne (1880-1960) was a distinguished Irish Jesuit and a prolific photographer. His best known photographs are those of the RMS Titanic and its passengers and crew taken shortly before its sinking in 1912.

In April 1912 he received a present from his uncle: a ticket for the maiden voyage of RMS Titanic from Southampton, England to Queenstown, Ireland, via Cherbourg, France. He traveled to Southampton via Liverpool and London, boarding the Titanic on the afternoon of 10 April 1912. He was booked in cabin no. A37 on the Promenade Deck. Browne took dozens of photographs of life aboard Titanic on that day and the next morning; he shot pictures of the gymnasium, the Marconi room, the first-class dining saloon, his own cabin, and of passengers enjoying walks on the Promenade and Boat decks. He captured the last known images of many crew and passengers, including Captain Edward J. Smith, gymnasium manager T.W. McCawley, engineer William Parr, Major Archibald Butt, and numerous third-class passengers whose names are unknown.

During his voyage on the Titanic, Browne was befriended by an American millionaire couple who were seated at his table in the liner’s first-class dining saloon. They offered to pay his way to New York and back in return for Browne spending the voyage to New York in their company. Browne telegraphed his superior requesting permission, but the reply was an unambiguous “GET OFF THAT SHIP – PROVINCIAL”.

Browne left the Titanic when she docked in Queenstown and returned to Dublin to continue his theological studies. When the news of the ship’s sinking reached him, he realized that his photos would be of great interest, and he negotiated their sale to various newspapers and news cartels. They appeared in publications around the world. Browne retained the negatives. His most famous album has been described as the Titanic Album of Father Browne.

**Trunks being carried aboard the Titanic, April 11, 1912.**

**Promenade deck of the Titanic, after leaving Southampton and passing the Portuguese RMSP Tagus, 1912.**

**Woman selling Irish lace aboard the Titanic, April 11, 1912.**

**The Titanic at Portsmouth, April 10, 1912.**

**Doug Spedden playing on the deck of the Titanic, April 12 1912.**

**Reading and writing room aboard the Titanic, 1912.**

**Father Browne’s first class stateroom on the Titanic, 1912.**

**First-class dining room on the Titanic, 1912.**

**Wireless operator Harold Bride at work in the Marconi Room on the Titanic, 1912.**

**Mail bags and trunks being loaded onto the Titanic, April 11, 1912.**

**Inspection of signal lamps aboard a tender used to ferry passengers to the Titanic, 1912.**

**Tugs ‘Hector’ and ‘Neptune’ nudging the bow of the Titanic away from a near collision, 1912.**

**Raising the anchor for the last time, the Titanic departs Queenstown (Cobh), Ireland, at 1:55pm on April 11, 1912.**

**Last picture of the TItanic leaving Queenstown (Cobh), Ireland on her maiden voyage to New York, April 12, 1912.**

(Photos: Fr Browne SJ Collection—UIG/The Bridgeman Art Library)

17 Rare Color Photos Showing Life at the Lodz Ghetto in Poland during the Early 1940s

The Lodz Ghetto was a World War II ghetto established for Polish Jews and Roma following the 1939 invasion of Poland. It was the second-largest ghetto in all of German-occupied Europe after the Warsaw Ghetto.

Shown are some rare color photographs that capture daily life at the Lodz Ghetto in 1943.

47 Gorgeous Photos of Actress and Inventor Hedy Lamar During the 1930s & 1940s

After a brief early film career in Czechoslovakia, she fled from her husband, a wealthy Austrian ammunition manufacturer, and secretly moved to Paris. There, she met Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studio head Louis B. Mayer, who offered her a movie contract in Hollywood, where she became a film star from the late 1930s to the 1950s.

Among Lamarr’s best known films are Algiers (1938), Boom Town (1940), I Take This Woman (1940), Comrade X (1940), Come Live With Me (1941), H.M. Pulham, Esq. (1941), and Samson and Delilah (1949).

Lamarr is also credited with being an inventor. At the beginning of World War II, she and composer George Antheil developed a radio guidance system for Allied torpedoes, which used spread spectrum and frequency hopping technology to defeat the threat of jamming by the Axis powers.

Although the US Navy did not adopt the technology until the 1960s, the principles of their work are arguably incorporated into Bluetooth technology, and are similar to methods used in legacy versions of CDMA and Wi-Fi.

Lamarr was married six times, had two sons and a daughter. She died in 2000 in Casselberry, Florida, of heart disease, aged 85.

Take a look at these glamorous photos to see the beauty of this talented woman from the 1930s and 1940s.